


A Touch of Wine

by WritingForTheRevolution



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25901512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingForTheRevolution/pseuds/WritingForTheRevolution
Summary: Thomas isn't going to push if his boyfriend doesn't want to talk.So he has a glass of wine.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 118





	A Touch of Wine

Thomas set his book carefully down in his lap, holding his page with one hand while he picked up his wine glass in the other. He took a sip and let his thoughts wander somewhere far away from Dickens’s ornate prose.

Alexander had been restless ever since they had gotten home. He wasn’t working on anything important, nothing that Thomas knew of, anyway, and he hadn't mentioned anything that was stressing him out. Then again, he tended not to until he physically broke down from the stress of whatever it was he was worrying over. He also hated it when Thomas nagged him to talk about it, so that wasn’t an option unless he wanted Alexander to snap at him. So Thomas really didn’t have much to work with other than being there when Alexander decided he was ready to talk, but he could try to provide some comfort until that moment came.

Thomas placed his wine glass back onto the table, closed his book, and reached over to wrap an arm around Alexander’s shoulders. He expected his boyfriend to lean into the touch, maybe reposition himself so he could continue reading while Thomas ran his fingers through his hair.

He wasn’t expecting Alexander to flinch away so hard that he almost fell off the couch.

Thomas automatically tightened his grip around Alexander, bracing his other hand against the arm of the couch to prevent them both from falling off. Unfortunately, his grip just seemed to make Alexander tense up more, and once he let go, Alexander remained frozen, almost curled in on himself.

“Alexander?” When he didn’t get a response, Thomas reached out slowly and placed his hand cautiously on Alexander’s leg. He tensed again, and Thomas pulled back. “Darlin’, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t,” Alexander whispered, shoulders still curled forward as he clenched his hands in his lap. His knuckles were white, and Thomas could see crescent marks imprinted on his palms from where he was pressing his nails. “Just… please don’t touch me.”

He sounded so broken, so scared, and Thomas wanted desperately to know why. He wanted to press for an explanation, wanted to somehow comfort his terrified boyfriend, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t even know what he’d done.

“I won’t unless you say it’s okay,” he murmured, moving back to the end of the couch farthest away from Alexander. Desperate for something to do with his hands, he picked up his wine glass. It clinked quietly against the coaster he had set it on, glass against wood.

Thomas heard Alexander shift from his place on the couch, and he looked over at him. His boyfriend was biting his lip, pressing himself into the other side of the couch as if he could become part of it if he tried hard enough, looking pointedly away from Thomas.

Thomas set his glass down again. Alexander flinched at the noise it made as it hit the table, pressing himself further into the couch.

“Alexander?”

He tensed again, looking over at Thomas. He had bitten his lip hard enough that it was bleeding, and there was genuine fear in his eyes. He looked ready to bolt from the room.

_He’s afraid of me,_ Thomas realized. _But why?_

He kept his eyes fixed on Alexander, moving just enough that he could see him properly, but not enough to be threatening. “Do you…” he began slowly. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Alexander didn’t move. “If not, that’s okay too. I won’t force you, but I just... I want to know what I did.”

“It’s not your fault,” Alexander whispered, his voice horse. “I… you didn’t do anything.”

“Okay.” There wasn’t really anything else to say to that, Thomas decided. He wasn’t going to push if Alexander didn’t want to talk.

Alexander turned toward Thomas slightly, moving away from the edge of the couch. He bit his lip again; more blood welled up. “I… I dated this guy, before I met you. His name was André.”

He paused again, closing his eyes for a second before he continued. “The first time he hit me, he was drunk. He got mad at me for something, I… I don’t remember what, but he slapped me and walked away. He saw the mark the next morning, and he apologized. He swore he’d never do it again, and I… I believed him.”

Thomas had never heard of this guy, not from Alexander, nor from any of his friends, and now he knew why. Alexander obviously hated talking about him, and Thomas wanted to punch the guy, if only from the small bit he had just heard. No one deserved to be treated like that.

Alexander wasn’t done. “There was another time when he was drinking at home. I… I tried to take the glass away from him because he’d had enough that he was slurring his words, but he wouldn’t let go.”

Alexander’s hands were shaking slightly, and Thomas wanted nothing more than to wrap him in his arms, protect him from everything, but all of this had already happened. It was in the past, and there was nothing he could do.

“The glass smashed on the floor, and he got mad. He... he said it was my fault, that I didn’t get to decide when he’d had enough, and he shoved me. I... I fell. On the glass.” Alexander looked down at his palms, as if expecting to see the glittering shards embedded in the skin. “He helped me bandage them up in the morning.”

Alexander paused, staring blankly at the wall. “He was always completely different in the morning,” he said, almost to himself. “He would apologize and kiss me and promise to do better.”

Alexander tore his gaze from the wall. “But he didn’t. It just kept getting worse. And… and then there was one night…” He paused to take a breath, picking at his cuticles. He still wasn’t looking at Thomas, and he was biting his lip again. “One night, he... he came home drunk. He pushed me up against the wall and started ki—” Alexander swallowed. “Kissing me. I… it wasn’t like we hadn’t… we had done stuff before, but I didn’t want to that night and I told him no. He said that I didn’t get to say no to him, and he... um… he did it anyway.”

He stopped to take a breath again, less steady this time. “He… it was rough and he… he didn’t care the next morning,” he whispered. “So I don’t... I don’t like it when people drink around me. It always ends badly.”

Thomas was stunned. Alexander never spoke this much about his past. All Thomas had known about his previous relationship—most of which he had pieced together from a handful of scattered comments by Lafayette—was that it had been an abusive one, and that the man had put Alexander through hell. He had been duly warned by Alexander’s friends that if he so much as bumped into Alexander by accident, he would be answering to all of them.

And as much as Thomas hated to admit it, he was afraid of Hercules Mulligan.

He glanced over at the glass of wine sitting innocently on the table, and he was struck by the realization that he had never seen any of Alexander’s friends drinking in front of him. Not when they were at a restaurant, not when they were at a party, not even when they were at one of their houses. How had he not noticed that before?

Even worse, why had no one told him? Had they thought he was already aware? Had they thought he’d pick up on it and ask? Had they thought that he wouldn’t care, that he’d go out of his way to drink and do something like André had?

“I mean,” Alexander continued quickly, interrupting Thomas’s thoughts as he glanced over with wide eyes. “You don’t have to stop doing it or anything just because of me. It’s stupid, I… I can deal with it.”

“Shit, Alexander, I—” Thomas sat up quickly, trying to find the right words. “You shouldn’t have to deal with it.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging roughly at the curls as he tried to find the words he wanted. “Fuck, if I knew it bothered you, I would have stopped a long time ago.”

“You don’t have to,” Alexander protested weakly, looking away. “It’s fine.”

Thomas tried to catch his gaze again. “I want to,” he murmured. “I want you to feel safe around me. I... want you to know that I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know that you won’t,” Alexander insisted, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him.

Thomas sighed. “Knowing it and believing it are two different things, darling.”

“I believe it! I just… sometimes I freak out before I think.”

“Fears aren’t always logical,” Thomas murmured. “But I can live without wine if it means you feel safer. Really.”

“Oh.” Alexander paused again, then looked up. “You… you can touch me now.”

Thomas smiled slightly, shifting over enough to wrap his arm around Alexander’s shoulder, and his boyfriend leaned into the touch this time, burying his head in Thomas’s shoulder.

This was why no one had told him about Alexander’s previous relationship. They trusted Thomas not to hurt Alexander. They didn’t need to tell him stories about what Alexander had been through just to make him care.

“I’m going to go dump this, then I’ll be right back,” he said quietly, gesturing to the glass of wine. “We can clean up your hands then too, okay?”

“Okay,” Alexander said, shifting away so Thomas could get up. Thomas picked up the half-empty glass and pushed himself off the couch, walking toward the kitchen.

“But you don’t… you don’t care?” Alexander’s voice was quiet, unsure.

Thomas paused with his hand on the doorframe, and turned back to look at him. “I don’t care about what?”

Alexander bit his lip again and looked away. “That... that he… that I let him...” He gestured vaguely with his hands. “You know.”

Thomas looked at him blankly for a second, and then he realized. His lips parted in a quiet ‘oh,’ and he turned away from the kitchen. “Oh, no, Alexander, of course not,” he murmured, crossing the room in a few steps, setting the glass down on the table as he knelt down in front of his boyfriend. “That will never matter. Not everything is about sex, okay?”

Alexander nodded quickly. “Okay. I just… okay.”

That was definitely not the end of Alexander’s thoughts, but Thomas wasn’t about to push it when Alexander had decided that he didn’t want to say any more. So he smiled gently and pushed himself off the floor, reaching to pick up his wine again before he exited the living room.

Walking into the kitchen was almost a breath of fresh air after the dark, serious atmosphere set by their conversation of the living room. Almost. He still had to process most of what was swirling around in his head.

Thomas crossed over the cold tile floor to the sink, twisting his wrist to tip the glass and pour the deep red liquid down the drain. He set the cup to the side and leaned against the counter.

He couldn’t get Alexander’s eyes out of his head, the way they had filled with pure, unadulterated fear when Thomas touched him. He never wanted Alexander to feel that way around him. He hadn’t wanted Alexander to feel like that around him even before they’d been dating.

_“You don’t care that I let him?"_ That was what Alexander’s question had been, even though he hadn’t voiced the last few words. He blamed himself for what André had done to him, and he had thought that Thomas would care that he wasn’t… pure? Perfect? Thomas didn’t know, but he couldn’t stand hearing those words come out of Alexander’s mouth.

“Fuck.” Thomas dropped his elbows onto the counter and let his head fall against the cabinet. He heard a sharp gasp behind him and turned, catching a glimpse of Alexander’s wide eyes before his boyfriend dropped his gaze to the floor.

“I… you said you’d come back, but you were taking so long and I was wondering why.” Alexander fiddled with the hem of his shirt, twisting it in his fingers and keeping his eyes on the floor. “If you changed your mind, that’s fine. You probably don’t want to touch me now that you know, so I’ll just... I’ll go, I’m sorry.”

He was shaking again, his breathing uneven and his shoulders curled forward. He wouldn’t meet Thomas’s eyes.

_Shit._ Thomas took a step away from the counter and Alexander froze again. Thomas paused. “Hey, darling, look at me.”

Alexander glanced up, and Thomas held out his hands. An invitation. Alexander took a step forward and placed his palms against Thomas’s. He was shaking.

“Do you want to sit down?” Thomas asked. Alexander nodded, gasping, and Thomas slowly led him sideways to the table, keeping their eyes locked all the while. Alexander pulled his hands from Thomas's to drag a chair out, and Thomas knelt in front of him, taking Alexander’s hands back as soon as he sat down.

“I’m not mad at you, I promise,” he whispered. “And I want to touch you. What happened wasn’t your fault, and it doesn’t change anything with us, all right?”

“But I didn’t… I let him,” Alexander mumbled. “I didn’t say no after the first time.”

Alexander’s fingers clenched around his, and Thomas pulled them closer to his chest. “There’s a difference between saying yes and not saying no.”

Alexander bit his lip and didn’t reply.

“Don’t do that,” Thomas murmured, releasing one of Alexander’s hands so he could reach up and remove his bottom lip from between his teeth. “You’ll make it bleed.”

Alexander looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.” Thomas pushed himself off the ground. “Now let’s get your hands cleaned up, hmm?”

Twenty minutes later found them curled up on the couch, sans alcohol, with Alexander’s hands wiped clean and checked for cuts. The calm commentary on the nature documentary created a soft blanket of white noise, and Thomas had Dickens open on his knee, letting Alexander read along from where his head rested against Thomas’s thigh.

Alexander drifted off after a while, his right hand falling from where it had been entwined with Thomas’s left behind the book. Thomas let the cover fall shut and ran his other hand along Alexander’s hip.

He swore right then that his touch would never hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Ending line taken from _Hard Times_ by Charles Dickens.
> 
> I needed to post something today to feel productive and good about one thing, and this has been finished for a while.


End file.
